Maharshtra and Madhya Pradesh had 9 stations each that saw record-breaking rainfall
In July 2023, parts of north India including Delhi were flooded after extreme rainfall. File photo: Vikas Choudhary / CSE While India received an overall normal rainfall in 2023, 69 weather stations across 23 of the 36 states / Union Territories broke their monthly 24-hour record rainfall — or received their highest ever rainfall in a day in that month in 122 years.
Six of these stations were in million-plus cities of Chandigarh, Delhi, Durg, Kochi, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram, showed the analysis in State of India's Environment In Figures: 2024, the upcoming annual book by Down to Earth and Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment.
The analysis, based on the India Meteorological Department data for 2023, showed that the country, in total, had 69 weather monitoring stations with such record-breaking rainfall days.
December had the highest number of record-breaking weather stations, with 14 across six states: Nagaland, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. In contrast, June, the first month of the monsoon season, saw eight weather monitoring stations with record-breaking rainfall days. July and August, the remaining monsoon months, had 12 and eight stations, respectively.
Koraput weather monitoring station in Odisha recorded its highest 24-hour rainfall for three months — May, March and December. It received 122 millimetres of rainfall on March 19, 2023, which is almost three times its previous record of 47 mm (March 12, 2006).
Further, 13 weather monitoring stations recorded their highest 24-hour rainfall for two months in 2023. Gujarat had three of these stations, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan (2 each) and 1 each in Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
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